There Is No Cat

Hardest surface known

When I asked Laura to marry me, I also asked her if she would consider something other than a diamond for her engagement ring. She’s got a lovely ruby on her finger. I find the diamond trade revolting, with a history of guerilla groups in places like Angola and Sierra Leone, for example, financing brutal wars with diamond mining. Then there’s the fact that diamonds’ prices are artifically inflated thanks to the marketing efforts of the DeBeers diamond cartel, the leaders of which can’t enter the United States for fear of being arrested for their efforts at controlling the diamond market. I don’t buy all that bull about how you should spend two months’ salary for a diamond, and you shouldn’t either. It’s not a tradition; it’s a creation of DeBeers’ marketing department. Now, an article in The Observer gives an even better reason for avoiding diamonds: Al Qaeda is deeply engaged in the diamond trade, changing much of their assets from cash into easy-to-smuggle diamonds. Buy a diamond, finance a terror attack. No thanks.

Posted at 12:40 AM